


Now I Only Obsess Over You

by empty_venom



Category: All Time Low
Genre: M/M, OCD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:34:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empty_venom/pseuds/empty_venom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has OCD. Alex calms him. Pre-slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now I Only Obsess Over You

"Fucking stop it!" Zack slams his hands on his desk as Jack adjusts his notebook so the edge lies parallel with the side of the desk. Jack startled, eyes wide. His flinching made the desk shift slightly and he busied himself with making sure it was straight again.

"What?" He whispers, confused at Zack's outburst. 

"You! Doing the fucking annoying thing again." Zack rolls his eyes as Jack moves the table a few inches to the left, then back to the right, to the left again and back to the right. 

"It's not my fault." Jack hisses back, upset. 

It isn't his fault. 

He can't help it. 

Everything has to be in place. 

Everything has to be tidy. 

He doesn't expect Zack to understand, but a little tolerance wouldn't go amiss. It's not like he enjoys having to place all of his notebooks in the right corner of his desk, piled up in size order, the top right corners of each book lined up with the corner of the desk, at the start of each lesson. He already has to endure the mocking and the teasing and the strange looks from people he didn't talk to, but having Zack yelling at him was too much.

"Sorry." Jack mutters back, and Zack looks away and out of the window, his pen dropping from his hand. It lands at an uneven angle and it's annoying the living hell out of Jack.

_Deep breaths, Jack. He tells himself. Do not move Zack's pen... Do not move Zack's pen._

But the pen is lying just there, and if Jack reaches out just a little he can nudge it and move it so it's parallel to the side of the desk...  
He exhales slowly as he taps the pen with the tip of his finger, all the uneasy tension in his body slowly leaving as it spins until it lands still, in just the right place.

Zack slowly turns his head and glares at Jack, moving the pen so it's back in its original place.  
Jack feels like he's going to cry.

"Why did you do that?" He grinds out, blinking back the shocked tears that are stinging the backs of his eyes. 

"Why is it affecting you?" Zack counters, raising his eyebrows. His mouth is set in a thin line, pursed and angry. 

"Zack..." The brunette mumbled, looking down at his own desk, the perfect right angles, the parallel lines pleasing to his eyes.  
And he looks at Zack's desk, with the crumpled sheets and the askew pen and the little scribbles here and there and- fuck. His vision is blurred by tears and swiftly turns back to his own desk. He takes deep breaths, looking at the nice ordered books, stationery, and tries to calm himself down. 

He can hear Zack's heavy sigh beside him.

The scuffling of chair legs on the floor. 

The scrape of plastic against wood. 

The shuffle of paper. 

When Jack looks over again, the pen is parallel to the side of the desk. The papers are in a - slightly crooked - pile in the top right corner of the desk. Zack's chair is sitting almost perfectly in the middle of the desk.  
Zack has a tired look on his face, but at least he tried.

"Thanks." Jack whimpers, smiling weakly at his best friend. Zack shrugs back, making sure it's with both shoulders or Jack would probably make him shrug the other (just to even things out). 

Jack wipes his right cheek with his left hand and his left cheek with his right hand, clearing the stupid tears from his face.

He doesn't understand why he gets so wound up about how his stuff is laid out, it just matters a lot to him. 

He knows Zack is sick and tired of it, but he can't help it. He wishes he could. Maybe then his best friend wouldn't want to slit his throat 99% of the time. 

Maybe then the other kids at school wouldn't look at him like he's some kind of lab specimen. 

Maybe then his mother wouldn't get angry at him and tell him to "Snap out of it!". 

Maybe then he wouldn't get the sick, unsettling feeling of uncertainty in his gut when he sees someone coloring something in _not_ in rainbow order. 

Maybe then he could sleep at night without having to have turned in his bed at least 4 times. 

 

But Jack just has to deal with it. It's not like he has anyone else to talk to about it. He's pretty sure it isn't just stupid habits, people with stupid habits don't cry over the fact that their friend's pen isn't sitting straight. 

Psychos do.

 

The rest of the day passes uneventfully - or as uneventfully as it can for Jack, having to eat his fries in size order was normal, right? - and he can't wait to get the hell out of school. He loves his best friend dearly, but he wants to get home. He wants to get to Alex.

Alex understands.

Or, he understands better than anyone else in his life.

And best of all, he stops the obsessions. Just for a little while, during their talking. 

That's what Jack looks forward to. That's why he gets up and goes to school each day. Because he knows Alex will be there, waiting for him, when he gets home. 

 

When he gets in, he slips his shoes off, failing on his first attempt to get his right shoe off, so he has to purposely fail on his first try at his left shoe to even things out. 

"Still haven't kicked the silly habit, have we?" Jack hears his mom's voice float from the kitchen doorway, and she's stood there with her arms folded across her chest. Jack scowls at her and pushes past, grabbing his glass from the cupboard and filling it with water, snatching up a box of poptarts and a plate on the way back out of the kitchen. 

"Nice to see you, too!" Joyce calls up the stairs after Jack, who grunts in reply. He doesn't have time for his mother's sarcasm or dismissive behavior today, he just wants to talk to Alex about his shitty morning. 

He hangs his backpack on the back of his door, pulling his books out and placing them in the top right corner of his desk, next to his laptop, which he turns on so it'll be ready by the time he's ready for it. 

His attention turns to the books, which he's subconsciously put in the top corner. He stares at them, squinting slightly. 

With a deep breath, he moves forward and shifts one of the books, so it lies slightly off kilter. The lurch in his stomach is enough to tell him something isn't right, but he ignores it. 

His breathing is getting quicker the more he looks at it and he can feel the tears welling. His hands are shaking where they're hanging limply at the ends of gangly arms, palms becoming clammy. He swallows thickly and moves another book, his head hurting more and more. 

It's easier to bare when it's other people's mistakes. Other people's belongings that are messed up, because they're not his and they don't understand how his mind works and they don't feel the pressing need to have everything in such a tidy order. But now he's the one moving his books, he's the one messing with his order, and he's making him sick, his insides twisting, every impulse in his body telling him to sort the mess on his desk out. 

But then the Skype tone starts and he sees Alex smiling away in his picture and he sees Alex calling him. The moment he accepts and Alex's face fills the screen, all the bad feelings go away. 

"Hey," Alex grins. "How was your day, you wonderful person?"

And he's calm.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on something that happened with me and my friend on Wednesday because life sucks. 
> 
> Also, my first work on here, which is always fun.


End file.
